caffeinated preemies

"..being a mum of two miracles means knowing that every day is a blessing and a gift. It means that you are just the luckiest person in the world to be a parent. It means cherishing every moment, every breath with such intensity that you feel tears come in your eyes for no apparent reason."

Angelina Jolie is without doubt not only a beautiful and highly articulate woman and a fashion icon, but above all a admirably devoted mother to her many children. The actress has said herself on several occasions that her family is the most important thing in her life.

I am caffeinated by these pictures that gives us a chance to take a look at the life of this famous woman from an unusual perspective — as seen from that of her family and in particular, her husband, the Hollywood actor Brad Pitt. These shots were taken by Pitt himself for W Magazine. The results turned out to be a set of truly heart-warming and touching photographs set in a relaxed and homely atmosphere. Wonderful, just wonderful!

As you all know, I am a mother of three beautiful girls. In order to master the daily routine with three kids under three – I need to be caffeinated …..and I started to do lists! Beside the to-do-lists, I recently have put together a list of things that are important to me and worth it to share, these are things to teach my daughters when they are growing up.

1. You are absolutely and undeniably unique. You are one of a kind, and there is no one like you in the world. BE YOURSELF. It will draw people to you for the rest of your life.

2. Life is not a race. Never compare yourself to where the people around you are. Your plan is different than anyone else’s plan. Remember that.

3. Always set goals. Even small ones. We are creatures of progression. Post your goals where you can see them and always picture yourself accomplishing them.

4. Lists are your friend. Make them, and enjoy the glorious feeling of crossing off an item.

5. Step outside your comfort zone. You’ll be surprised.

6. Everything is always okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.

9. Read your scriptures. It has the answers to all the problems you’ll face. And if you don’t think so, read harder.

10. We don’t stop playing when we get old. We get old because we stop playing.

11. Friends will make or break you. Seek out good friends. Be the kind of friend you wish you had.

12. Don’t be a people-pleaser. Just be honest and do what’s right, even if it’s not popular.

13. When you start feeling sorry for yourself, find someone to serve. Do something nice for someone. Making cookies is a good start.

14. Chronic complaining is unattractive. Develop your problem solving skills. If you aren’t willing to make the proper change, you aren’t allowed to whine about the problem.

15. Never deny an adventure.

16. Keep a journal/ Start blogging. Write your story. It’s therapy.

17. Your papa works so hard to support our family. He loves me and you so much. He makes time to laugh and have fun with us every single day. He is happy and patient. I don’t know how he does it, but make sure you find someone like him to marry.

18. Don’t be afraid to do things yourself.

19. Part of doing things yourself is making mistakes. Mistakes can always be fixed.

20. You never know who is watching and looking up to you. Never forget that you are always an example to someone.

21. Be kind to everyone. Even strangers. You don’t know what they are going through. Treat everyone you meet like it’s their birthday.

22. Hard work will get you further than anything in life.

23. Learn to see the beauty in the world. It’s all around. You just have to open your eyes.

24. Take road trips often.

25. There is more to life than money. Money can never make you happy. Debt will rot your soul. Avoid unnecessary debt.

26. Music is a language best understood by the heart.

27. Laugh every single day. A sense of humor is worth gold.

28. Happiness is a journey. It’s a mood. It is NOT a destination. You can be happy amidst trials.

29. Always eat breakfast.

30. A bowl of popcorn and Singing In the Rain will mend a heart.

31. You’re never too busy for a long bubble bath.

32. I will never get mad at you for staying up too late reading a good book.

33. Be detail oriented.

34. No excuses. Just woman-up and get things done!

35. A good pair of running shoes is an investment.

36. Trust takes a long time to earn, be so careful to not break that with your friends and family.

37. Make friends with your cousins.

38. There’s no such thing as too many pillows.

39. A strong man isn’t threatened by a strong woman.

40. Womanhood is a gift.

41. The painful truth is always better than a messy lie.

42. Good communication is a skill that should always be worked on.

43. When it rains, pause to go jump in a puddle. Dance, while you’re at it.s.

44. Understand your worth. If someone isn’t willing to treat you like a daughter of God, they aren’t worth your time. Don’t ever ever settle just to save yourself from being alone.

45. As per your papa, girls can like Star Wars too.

46. Never play the victim. If bad things happen, it’s for a reason. We rise from the ashes. We don’t feel sorry for ourselves.

47. Faith has a short shelf life. Never assume you’re “safe” from falling. I made that mistake, and it was hard to fix. But always remember, it CAN be fixed. It is just really really hard.

48. It’s not your place to judge. Ever.

49. Forgive. Even when they never say sorry.

50. Don’t ever count on somebody else to make you happy.

51. Be brave enough to try new foods at least once.

52. Be the first to volunteer when someone needs help.

53. Get a library card.

54. Fight for what matters.

55. Learn something from everyone.

56. Nobody likes a know-it-all.

57. Mean everything you say. Keep your word. Don’t trifle words.

58. Don’t live in the past. You can’t drive forward if you’re stuck looking in a rear view mirror. You will keep crashing. Look FORWARD, and occasionally glance back to keep things in check.

59. Don’t wait for things to happen. Make them happen.

60. Drink lots of water.

61. Most of the things you worry about never happen.

62. I will always want to hear from you, my daughters.

63. Being passive aggressive is immature. When you have a problem with something or someone, do the right thing and talk to them about it. It’s hard. But it’s better.

64 Never attack the person. Attack the problem.

65. It never hurts to ask.

66. You can’t change what people think about you. Be your best self, and that is enough.

67. Cardigan weather is the best weather.

68. If you’re bored, organize your closet.

69. Girls can use power tools too.

70. Get to know yourself. And LOVE yourself. But remember, it’s not always about YOU.Think of others, and be there to lift them up.

71. Your life has a reason, and you have a great work to do. Look for opportunities around you to make a difference.

72. Being consistent is the best way to not have drama.

73. People watching is never a waste of time.

74. If someone tells you getting your pilot’s license is impossible, they are wrong.

My daily routine feels sometimes like a marathon disaster movie, starring me racing around after my kamikaze toddler. My nights are a study in sleep deprivation, with the twins waking up every two hours. As the blog is considered to be an online break of the daily routine, I put some ideas together for how to enjoy this roller-coaster ride called motherhood.

So here, just a smattering of ways to let the good times roll:

From The Fun Book for Moms by Melina Gerosa Bellows. copyright 2007 by Melina Gerosa Bellows.

Take a bath with your infant. Make sure your husband is around for the handoff, so you can relax until the last minute. (Don’t forget to smell your baby right afterward. Heaven!)

At the end of every summer, take a family photo for the holiday card (you’ll be happy to have this accomplished once December comes).

The next time you have to go to a boring kiddie activity, invite another mum-friend along. Hide wine in sippy cups for the two of you to nurse undercover.

In the dead of winter/ summer in Dubai, fix some snacks and watch Happy Feet on DVD. Tell your kids you love them even more than the penguins love their chicks.

Go to the beach in the off-season. Throw rocks in the water and collect shells. Put them in a vase and use it as shelf decor in your living room.

Use your kids as an excuse to do the things you want to do, like going to silly feel-good movies, eating mac and cheese for dinner and jumping in the moonbounce. Use your kids as an excuse to get out of things you don’t want to do, like going to a wedding or office party.

Every Mother’s Day, have a picture taken with your kids. Keep the photos all together—along with special cards, ticket stubs, mementos and anything else that makes you feel good about being a mom – in a shoe box. (Of course, you must get those new shoes you love in order to do this correctly.) Every year, look through your Goddess Mum box and see how much your kids have grown.

Give your kids quiet time every day. Let them learn to be by themselves with books, crayons or blocks.

Let your whole family take a day off and hang out in pj’s all day long.

Rent Sex and the City on DVD, and reminisce about the days when you were single and the biggest problem you had was whether the “He” of the moment was going to call. Let the romance of your youth seduce you. Then remember that, despite your freedom, all you really wanted was to fall in love and have beautiful babies.

Pitch a tent in the backyard. Use it as your outdoor reading room.

Invent a house fairy. Give her a name, and tell your kids that she is always watching them and counting up their good deeds.

Listen for the deep, happy sighs that come after your kids play or laugh really hard. Tuck them away in your heart.

This is the longest post on the blog and I think also the most important! It all started with the question if I am capable of raising three independent, thoughtful, strong women?

I started to gather my thoughts and those of my mother, grandmothers, and women around the world in an effort to arm them with an updated take on age-old wisdom.

Of all the advice, so much comes back to THREE CORE PRINCIPLES:

1. BE THOUGHTFUL

2. BE KIND

3. THINK FOR YOURSELF

Here are some of my favorites:

1. Be Generous. With your time, your money, your heart. If, on my best day, there was a single lesson I could hope to impart to you, this would be it.

3. Root for other people. We all tend to envy other people’s successes. It’s not intentional; somewhere in our DNA it seems to be programmed that for every success for someone else, there is one less success for us. For every book published, there is one less book we will publish; for every baby had, there is one less baby for us to have. Of course, that is illogical. Fight off those thoughts; there is an unlimited amount of potential for everyone in this universe. Championing others is kind, and even more, it’s a display of optimism that will seep into you and color your view of this life.

3. You don’t have to pretend you know something if you don’t. It’s okay to just say, “I don’t know.” You can’t know everything!

4. You are the wellspring of your own hope.No one (besides your mother) will be more invested in your emotional well-being than they are in their own. Joy is not something gifted to you by other people; it’s an outlook on the world that you have to cultivate independent of friends and lovers. Daughter, if I could give it to you, I would, a million times over, but the truth is that you are singularly responsible for your own happiness.

5. Live alone for a period of time. I love living with you and your father; I also cherish the years I spent living alone. You shouldn’t go from being someone’s daughter to someone’s wife to someone’s mother without first being someone yourself. Living alone will allow you to discover who you are when no one is watching, what you need to get through a day, and ultimately that you are a capable, independent woman.

6. If you marry your first love you will miss out on the exquisite pain of a broken heart. Don’t settle. Risk being alone in order to find what you are truly looking for.

7. Talk to strangers. Teaching you to fear strangers would be cynical. The generosity of unknown people will ease your burden on many occasions. Instead, I want you to learn to gauge people’s intentions by listening to your gut instincts and recognizing subtle cues. Confidence in this skill will allow you to avoid the aberrant persons you encounter and embrace something much more common – the kindness of strangers.

8. Be where you are. Try not to think about where you need to go next or wherever you just came from. This is more difficult than it sounds, but work at it. It’s important for your head to be present in the place where your body is.

9. Unless you’re playing a game, there’s no point in keeping score. Running a tally of who gets what in life will only frustrate you and annoy everyone else. It serves no purpose; the way life’s benefits and hindrances are doled out will never make any sense.

10. Ensure that the “bad” things you do are the result of your own choices.
You are doubtlessly going to engage in some unhealthy, unwise or otherwise questionable behavior somewhere along the line; this is part of learning your limits and establishing your comfort zone. Please have enough self-awareness to at least make the choice to participate, rather than floating through life getting swept up in whatever trouble comes your way.

11. If you test people, they may fail. Friendship, love, and family don’t hinge on any single success or failure; you would do yourself a disservice to administer litmus tests to things as labyrinthine as love and affection.

12. Acknowledge inequity. Don’t let anyone tell you that everyone gets a fair shot. Be sympathetic to the disadvantaged and work hard to include them.

13.Create a sense of family wherever you are. Find people to love and love them unconditionally.

14. Try not to wait eagerly for people to finish their stories just so you can tell your own versions that more directly involve you. You’ll get your chance to speak — but first, listen.

15. Pursue more than just the things you are good at. You will be told at a young age what your talents are. Enjoy the compliments, but don’t accept them at face value. You don’t want to walk a narrow path; attempt things you aren’t comfortable with and uncover skills or proclivities you didn’t know you possessed.

16. Everyone is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is not the blanket failure it’s made out to be; we all act in ways that conflict with the image we want to reflect or the values we want to embody. Try not to pigeonhole people with expectations; be forgiving of this inconsistency, both in yourself and in others.

17. You will get good at anything you practice.vEverything gets easier the more you do it, good or bad, so choose your habits wisely.

18. If you don’t have the money to buy an extravagant gift for someone special, bake! A homemade meal or dessert is worth more than you’d think.

9. Discipline in your mind; extravagance in your heart. Be practical, but never forget to take the time to dream.

20. It is possible to be both pretty and smart. They don’t always go together, certainly, but one thing does not preclude the other. This goes for you and also for people you meet.

21. There’s a science to everything. Dating, careers, friendships — just because it’s not clear from the onset doesn’t mean you can’t figure it out.

22. Every time you rescue someone else, you rescue yourself a little bit. You will have occasion to save people: to throw a life preserver, to present an opportunity, to alter a destiny for the better. Seize these chances. Reflect your best, most giving characteristics. Rescue yourself from tedious inward focus: These are your opportunities, too.

23. The measure of your goodness is not the amount of love you receive. It is the quality of the love you give to others. It takes a long time to learn this lesson, maybe more time than most of us have.★

I am writing this blog to celebrate the modern & smart and stylish motherhood! What is “being a mother” exactly? Herewith, I would like to write about my personal perception of motherhood, the beautiful and challenging life long event.

You don’t get money from being a mother but you do actually get watch as someone that was once inside of you blossom into an adult. There is no other feeling like that of the maternal urge. So all you stylish mums to-be, get ready. You are in for an experience of a lifetime!

You learn on a daily base, you make mistakes and you may laugh or cry. Don’t be nervous about having to raise an extension of yourself, some belive that having a child is the end of their life but actually it is a new beginning. You dont’t have to completely say good bye to your social life rather you find the old and the new integrating created a healthy balance for both.

Don’t be afraid to act silly, make noises or funny faces. Reminisce on how your maternal figure probably made you feel loved and focus on that. Don’t be afraid or nurture or discipline.Motherhood is your time to find new and innovative ways to raise a healthy, sound-minded person. Read up on motherhood issues like potty training, appropriate discipline and developmental techniques. Follow your first mind if it doesn’t sound right for you then don’t force it. Only you will know what you are comfortable with for your child. As time goes on, you will have a routine and then have to change it.

It can be frustrating at first but being a mum teaches versatility and patience. Keep in mind that you are the best mother you can be and practice saying that over and over in your head. It will be needed for those times of insecurity that sometimes come along with parenthood. If you don’t know the answer to some question you may have, ask your own mum or someone you can get advice that you can trust. Some things re learned by experience, others by asking and some you just stumble upon.

One of the best parts of being “Mama” is knowing you are giving them the best at all times. The best has nothing to do with materialistic items but more to do with what you are contributing to them as a person. So when the terrible twos, threes and fours hit, be conscious of the fact that you were once a child too. We go through a lot of stages in life but once you are a mother, you will always be one. Enjoy your new path of motherhood!★

As a preemie mum I am caffeinated by the story of the beautiful First lady, who was mum of a stillborn and a preemie. It is terrible what she had to go through.★

Jacqueline Lee “Jackie” Kennedy Onassis (née Bouvier, (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was the wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Jackie and John had four children; Arabella was a stillborn in 1956, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born in 1957, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born in 1960, and in 1963, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, a preemie (over five weeks early), died two days after his birth.

Jackie’s preemie story:

On August 7, 1963 Jackie went into labor and gave birth to a boy, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, via emergency Caesarean at nearby Otis Air Force Base. His lungs were not fully developed, and he was transferred from Cape Cod to Boston Children’s Hospital where he died of hyaline membrane disease (now known as respiratory distress syndrome) two days after birth. Jacqueline had remained at Otis Air Force Base to recuperate after the Caesarean delivery; President Kennedy went to Boston to be with their infant son, and was present at his death. Jacqueline would later say that her husband cried after Patrick’s death, a departure from his lack of emotion at the passing of their stillborn daughter years earlier and that she was stunned, hoping that the ordeal would change him as a person. The First Lady was deeply affected by the death,entering a state of depression afterward and it had an impact on her marriage. Upon their departure from Otis Air Force Base, she and her husband were seen holding hands, an unusual public gesture for the couple. Secret Service agent Clint Hill recalled their having “a distinctly closer relationship” following Patrick’s death. Press secretary Pierre Salingeralso believed that the President and First Lady had been brought closer by the passing of their last child.★

I have introduced Doutzen as fabulous model mum in one of my previous posts. I am absolutely caffeinated by these pictures by photographer Ben Weller. I think the styling in this editoral (Twin Magazine S/S 2015) is everything. Loving those Adidas sneakers, too ★